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The Right to Final Cut Approval: the Struggle for Creative Control Between the Director and the Studio in Feature Filmmaking

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The Right to Final Cut Approval: the Struggle for Creative Control Between the Director and the Studio in Feature Filmmaking THE RIGHT TO FINAL CUT APPROVAL: THE STRUGGLE FOR CREATIVE CONTROL BETWEEN THE DIRECTOR AND THE STUDIO IN FEATURE FILMMAKING Elana Harris “To be a writer, you need a pen. To be a painter, a brush. To be a musician, an instrument. But to be a filmmaker, you need the collaboration of others to bring your vision to the canvas that is the movie screen.”1 —Martin Scorsese, Academy Award Winning Director INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 3 I. OVERVIEW OF THE MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY ................................................. 5 A. Film Through the Stages .................................................................................................. 5 1. Development ................................................................................................................ 6 2. Pre-Production ............................................................................................................ 7 3. Production ................................................................................................................... 8 4. Post-Production .......................................................................................................... 8 5. Distribution ................................................................................................................. 9 B. The Players: The Artists and the Businessmen ........................................................... 10 1. Writers ....................................................................................................................... 10 2. Directors .................................................................................................................... 11 3. Producers .................................................................................................................. 12 4. Studios ....................................................................................................................... 12 II. LEGAL AND ECONOMIC ISSUES IN FILMMAKING: AUTHORSHIP AS AN ECONOMIC CONCEPT ...................................................................................................... 13 A. Economic Authorship Under the Work Made for Hire Doctrine .............................. 14 B. Authorship in Joint Works ............................................................................................ 15 C. Moral Rights .................................................................................................................... 18 III. THE RIGHT OF FINAL CUT: THE ULTIMATE IN CREATIVE CONTROL ......... 19 A. The Studio’s Position Regarding Final and the Director’s Response ........................ 20 B. Default Position: DGA Basic Agreement ..................................................................... 21 C. The Director’s Cut: Not so Final .................................................................................. 21 IV. THE STRUGGLE FOR CREATIVE CONTROL ............................................................. 22 A. The Impact of Marketing Research on Post-Production Editing Control ................ 23 B. Creative Control in Independent Filmmaking ............................................................. 24 C. Cases Dealing with Final Cut ......................................................................................... 25 1 Mission Statement, THE FILM FOUNDATION, http://www.storyofmovies.org/common/11041/aboutFoundation.cfm?clientID=11041 (accessed on Oct. 27, 2013). 1. Bogdanovich v. Universal Pictures ........................................................................... 25 2. Gilliam v. American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. ................................................ 26 3. Beatty v. Paramount Pictures Corporation .............................................................. 27 4. Cimino v. Gladden Entertainment Corporation ....................................................... 29 V. CONTRACTING FOR FINAL CUT .................................................................................. 30 A. Alternatives to Final Cut ................................................................................................ 31 1. Development Fees ..................................................................................................... 32 2. Pay-or-Play ................................................................................................................ 32 3. The Right to Remain Anonymous ........................................................................... 32 4. Defining Consultation .............................................................................................. 33 5. No Substitution ......................................................................................................... 33 6. Agreed Upon Editor ................................................................................................. 34 B. Final Cut Provisions ....................................................................................................... 34 VI. STRATEGIC COMPROMISES TO MINIMIZE POST-PRODUCTION EDITING CONFLICTS .......................................................................................................................... 34 A. Collaborating on a Roadmap Before Production ........................................................ 35 B. Gross Participation as Compensation for Creative Control ....................................... 36 C. Creating and Incentivizing a Realistic Budget and Schedule ..................................... 37 VII. CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................... 38 VIII. APPENDICES ....................................................................................................................... i A. The A-List Director Contract ........................................................................................... i B. The New “It” Director Contract ...................................................................................... ii C. The Novice Director Contract ......................................................................................... iii INTRODUCTION While filmmaking is a highly collaborative process, it is not democratic one. With so many “cooks in the kitchen,” a need exists for a clear decision maker. Yet, paradoxically, filmmaking’s collaborative nature makes it a process that cannot fit squarely within one individual’s power.2 Filmmaking—especially with studio films—involves a complex hierarchy of authority and only a select few can significantly affect the outcome of the film. For all practical purposes, when it comes to making a film, power is synonymous with creative control, and the person with the ultimate in creative control is the individual who possesses the right of final cut3—the entitlement to determine the final version of the movie for distribution and exhibition.4 From both an artistic and financial perspective, the individual vested with final cutting authority is at the top of the pyramid. While, as the intellectual force, directors are often deemed the authors of films, the financing entity – generally the studio or production company – usually owns the copyright and thus is the true owner of the film. The copyright owner is vested with artistic control over the film’s final version. Unlike novelists and playwrights, directors are not considered the “authors” of creative works. Instead, studios or production companies are generally recognized as the “authors” of motion pictures through works made for hire or transfer of rights agreements. Thus, while directors are often understood as the principal creative force in the film—translating the written script into a cohesive whole—only a select group of directors have attained the level of success necessary to obtain the ultimate in creative control: the right of final cut.5 The lesser- known filmmakers, however, lack the reputation to wield such bargaining power and cannot risk losing the financing or release of their film by insisting on creative control.6 In most cases, the director’s employment contract makes clear that the producer retains all rights in the film as well as final authority for creative decisions.7 The Director’s Guild of America (DGA) standard 2 For a detailed view of how Hollywood operates, see generally MARK LITWAK, REEL POWER: THE STRUGGLE FOR INFLUENCE AND SUCCESS IN THE NEW HOLLYWOOD (1986). 3 Final cut has two meanings. The right of final cut refers to the individual vested with the power to determine the final version of the film. The second definition of final cut means the final version of the film as released to the public. 4 See JOAN DIDION, In Hollywood, in THE WHITE ALBUM 165 (1990) (“The spirit of actually making a picture [is] a spirit not of collaboration but of armed conflict in which one antagonist has a contract assuring him nuclear capability. Some reviewers make a point of trying to understand whose pictures it is by ‘looking at the script’: to understand whose picture it is one needs to look not particularly at the script but at the deal memo.”). 5 As used throughout this paper, “final cut” refers to the right to determine and approve the final version of the film for public viewing. 6 See Craig A. Wagner, Motion Picture Colorization, Authenticity, and the Elusive Moral Right, 64 N.Y.U. L. REV. 628, 658-59 (1989) quoting Flore Krigsman, Section 43(a) of the Lanham Act
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